Strawberry Salad with Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette

Like I shared last week, we have really been enjoying that strawberries are back in season.  In my recent pursuit of recipes that use strawberries, like the Strawberry Banana Muffins I shared last week, I also found this yummy Strawberry Salad recipe on babble.com.

You need for the salad:
Mixed greens
Chevre (goat cheese) (I just broke it into chunks)
Strawberries, quartered (or sliced if you like)
Almond slivers
Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Arrange the desired amounts of each ingredient on a plate or toss in a large bowl.

To make the Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette, you will need:
5 large strawberries, cut in pieces
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup or honey
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor.

I made this salad for a ladies' dinner at our church last week and it was a huge hit.  I quadrupled the vinaigrette recipe and put it into an empty olive oil bottle that I had saved.  Turns out that I didn't need that much dressing for the salad that I took to share, but now I have the dressing already made.  Which is great because it is my new favorite dressing.

A couple things I did ... I pureed the strawberries before adding any of the other ingredients to the food processor.  And since I quadrupled the recipe, I ended up not having enough honey, so I threw in some stevia until it tasted sweet enough for me.  :)  I used freshly ground sea salt and bottled lemon juice, since that is what I had.

Also, the recipe on Babble actually calls for candied almonds, which I'm sure are really good, but I opted to just have plain almonds.  

That's it!  Let me know if you try it and what you think!  I just picked up some more strawberries today so I think this will be my lunch tomorrow.  YUM!


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Strawberry Banana Muffins

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Now that strawberries are in season and are pretty inexpensive, we have been buying and eating them like crazy.  As much as I love to just eat them as is, I also wanted to find some recipes that use strawberries.  I pinned a bunch and tried one out recently.  It is a variation of the Strawberry Muffins I found on Feisty, Frugal, & Fabulous.

Her recipe is as follows ... 

Strawberry Muffins

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  20 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Serves: 12

Ingredients

• ½ cup butter or margarine, softened
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup milk
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 1½ cups chopped strawberries
• 3 tsps sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl.
3. Add egg and mix well.
4. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
5. Next, alternately add the flour mixture and milk to butter mixture in the large bowl.
6. Add vanilla, then gently fold in the strawberries
7. Spoon batter into muffin pans (this makes a dozen muffins).
8. Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over muffins. You will have a lot of sugar, but this allows you to be as generous as you like.
9. Bake at 400º for 20 minutes.

Notes

The batter will seem really thick – no worries though, it’s supposed to be!

I have a bunch of bananas that need to be used up so I thought I'd mash one up and add it to the batter.  I threw it in before adding the flour.  And then I reduced the amount of milk by a little to compensate.  YUM!!  I had never had these without the banana added, but I loved them with the banana.  They are so moist and delicious!  And Doug loves them.  The kids aren't big on muffins with fruit in them (they don't like blueberry muffins and Alex is the only one who will eat banana muffins), so they haven't tried them.  Which just leaves more for me.  Although I'm not sure that is a good thing.  :)

Oh, one thing to note, the recipe says the batter makes 12.  I was able to get 16 muffins from this recipe.  Maybe I should have put more batter in the cups but they were already pretty full.  And I didn't sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar mixture on all of them. Just a few.  I wanted to see how they were with and without.  I like them both ways.  :)

Also linking with Project Alicia, In the Moment with ..., and Live and Love ... Out Loud.

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Chewy Granola Bars

A good friend shared a recipe with me recently for some chewy granola bars that I just had to share with you.  They are so good!  And so much better than the store-bought kind.

My boys love these!

I do have to tell you that these pictures are of the ones she gave us.  She spread some Nutella on them, which makes them even yummier.  I haven't made them myself yet.  But I plan to.  Soon.

Blogger doesn't appear to have an add on for making recipe cards so I made my own in PSE.  It's not perfect, but it will do.  It is a jpeg file that you should be able to click on and print.  I hope.  :)

You can add just about anything you want to the bars.  Chopped apples or raisins would probably be good.  Whatever you like!  She even gave me some chia seeds to add to them.  I guess they are supposed to be really good for you.  I had never heard of them.

That's it for me.  Hopefully next week I'll have something to share that I actually made.  :)  I have the challenge to make a Yoda birthday cake for Nick.  He's turning 10 this Saturday and requested Yoda.  My friend who made his Angry Bird cake last year is busy this week and is unable to make his cake this year.  So here's hoping it turns out well!  It is a little lot above my skill level.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great rest of the week!

Linking with: Kleinworth & Co., Project Alicia, In the Moment With ..., and Live and Love ... Out Loud.

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Barbecued Beef {recipe}

After having barbecued beef sandwiches at girls' night recently, I decided I needed to make barbecued beef for the family for dinner.  This meal is always a big hit and provides leftovers for a couple days.   I got the recipe out of a slow cooker cookbook years ago.  It is sooooooo good!

This was my lunch today.  A bbq beef sandwich, steamed green beans from our garden, and baby carrots.  YUM!  Although, I did end up having two sandwiches.  They were small, more like sliders since I put the meat on last night's homemade dinner rolls.

Normally when we have this for supper we have the bbq beef, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable.  Which is what we had last night.  Oh, and the homemade dinner rolls.  But today for lunch I put the meat on a dinner roll, sprinkled some cheddar cheese on top and put it under the broiler for a few minutes to warm and the cheese to melt and the bun to get toasty.  YUM!

The recipe:
3 pounds boneless chuck roast
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (I substituted minced garlic since I didn't have any powder)

Directions:
Place roast in slow cooker.  Combine remaining ingredients in large bowl and mix well.  Pour mixture over roast.  Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.  Remove roast from slow cooker, shred meat with a fork and place shredded meat back in slow cooker.  Stir meat evenly to coat with sauce.

Spoon onto buns or serve with mashed potatoes, rice, or whatever you desire!  Enjoy!

Linking with Kleinworth & Co. Your Best Weekly, Project Alicia, In the Moment with ..., NC Sue, and Live and Love ... Out Loud.

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Chicken & Gnocchi Soup - Your Best Weekly

Let me preface this by telling you that I am NOT a food photographer.  I try, but not often enough to be very good.  My problem is probably that I'm trying to photograph food when I'm hungry and just want to eat it, which is the case with today's recipe I am sharing.  :)  I had just finished exercising and was really hungry for lunch!  So I didn't want to spend a lot of time setting up and photographing my lunch.  I wanted to eat!  :)

I have shared this recipe before but it has been a while.  And I have tweaked it some since then also.

Chicken & Gnocchi Soup (like Olive Garden's)

This is the suggested recipe.
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 carrot, shredded
1 garlic clove, chopped
3-4 chicken breasts, cooked and diced
1 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper
Knorr homestyle stock, chicken flavor (optional, but highly recommended)  :)
4 cups chicken stock (I use broth)
2 cups half and half
16 ounces potato gnocchi
1 Tablespoon cornstarch (optional)
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped

Cook chicken (I use my pressure cooker), let cool, then chop into chunks.  Set aside.  (You could also use a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.)

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil.  Saute celery, onions, carrots, and garlic until soft.  (I usually wait a few minutes to add the garlic since it seems to cook faster than the other veggies.)

Add chicken, thyme, salt and pepper to taste, and one of the little packets of Knorr homestyle stock.  (I just recently discovered how yummy the Knorr homestyle stock makes some of the things I make, so while this isn't necessary, it will rock your world!  Okay, not really, but it will make this soup really, really tasty!)  If you add the stock, just mix until it melts.

Add chicken stock/broth and half and half.  Heat to boiling.

Add gnocchi.  Gently boil for 4 minutes, then turn down heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add spinach and cook another 1-2 minutes until spinach is wilted.

If you want thicker soup, mix cornstarch with 1-2 tablespoons water and add.  (I have never needed to add cornstarch.  The soup is just perfect for me without it.)

Serve with salad and/or bread and enjoy!
***********

Now when I make it, I don't really measure anything but the half and half.  Everything else I just wing it.  For instance, I never measure the olive oil - I just pour.  I also used 3 carrots this time, 2 garlic cloves, and a couple handfuls of spinach. We buy baby spinach in bags so I just remove the stems and rip it apart instead of chopping.  It is just easier.  And it doesn't hurt to have more veggies in your soup, right?

Oh, and I always add more than 16 ounces of gnocchi.  We buy our gnocchi at Sam's Club in 3 packs.  Each pack has 1.1 pounds in it and I add two packs to our soup.  The gnocchi is the kids' favorite part of the soup.  :)  That's probably why I never need to add cornstarch.  The extra gnocchi probably helps thicken the soup.

I made a loaf of French bread to eat with our soup last and everyone loved it.  And I get to eat leftovers for lunch for a few days.  Yum!

This is very similar to Olive Garden's soup, but we just ate there recently and I got their soup.  I have to say - I like mine better.  Maybe because we make this once a month or so and my taste buds have gotten used to it.

Anyway, that's my share for this week.

Thanks to Gina for featuring my little monster valentines from last week!  They were a hit with Alex's classmates!

Linking with Gina for Your Best Weekly.

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